DAVID CAMERON will today deliver a multi-million-pound boost to millions of hard pressed families as the battle for the votes of Britain’s “squeezed middle” intensifies.

The Prime Minister will announce that rises in rail fares will be capped for two more years and that 22 million households will benefit from a third year council tax freeze.

The announcements ahead of the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, which starts today, will mean average savings of £117 per household next year. Across the three years, families with one commuter will save more than £353 a year.

Downing Street said the proposed savings had been in the pipeline for weeks and were not a response to Ed Miliband’s claim at Labour’s conference to be leading Britain’s new “One Nation” party.

However, it signals that both sides now see the battle for the “squeezed middle” vote as the key to unlocking victory at the 2015 election.

Stagnating wages combined with sharp rises in the cost of fuel, electricity and food have seen living standards fall by the sharpest rate in living memory.

We are the party of the strivers

Grant Shapps

Political advisers fear macro-economic debates about how best to tackle the deficit are proving a turn-off for voters while “living standards” policies will resonate on the doorstep.

A Number 10 source said Ed Miliband’s well received speech to the Labour conference in Manchester contained a “big hole”: policies to cut Britain’s crippling deficit while helping families to “cope with the everyday cost of living”.

He said while Miliband employed the rhetoric of the Centre ground, his party had shifted to the Left.

The source added: “Times are difficult for many people as we get to grips with paying down the debts and deficits built up over the past few years. David Cameron is determined to do what he can to ensure that the cost of living is held down.

Freezing council tax and capping rail fares will provide real help with family budgets.” With Labour an average 10 per cent ahead in the polls and Miliband closing the leadership gap on Cameron, the Conservative conference will focus on economic credibility and implementation of reforms in the countdown to the 2015 election.

Under the slogan Britain Can Deliver, Conservative ministers will stress that their party stands for aspiration and the striving class.

It underlines fears that many middle- income, floating voters have peeled away from Cameron since 2010, known as the: “Let Down By Daves”. In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Express, party chairman Grant Shapps said: “We are the party of the strivers.”

A third year council tax freeze would save households living in an average Band D property £72 next year.

The Department of Communities and Local Government will hand authorities a £270million pot to fund the freeze and will give town halls baseline funding to ensure there is no “cliff edge” in 2014-15.

Chancellor George Osborne is expected to detail how this will be achieved when he delivers his Autumn Statement on December 5.

Councils who want to defy the freeze and raise rates by more than two per cent will be forced to hold a local referendum.

Extending the freeze past the two years enshrined in the Coalition Agreement means an overall saving for families living in average Band D properties of £220.

Mr Cameron will also announce that, for the second year in a row, rail fares will be pegged to an increase in line with inflation plus one per cent, rather than the planned three per cent increase.

The lower fare rise will continue on into 2014, creating an average annual saving for season ticket holders of £45, though savings for some could be as high as £200 over the next two years.

Downing Street said the cap would benefit more than a quarter of a million annual season ticket holders and millions of Londoners, who would make an annual £25 saving on Zone 1-2 Travelcards.